I'm kind of curious about opinions on why my story got hammered with such a low score in the April Fool's contest. I'm not claiming it's my magnum opus or anything, but it scored a full two points lower than my lowest rated story ever on here.
Most of my stories are getting in the low to mid 7's, which I've been pretty happy with so far. Coming out of the contest with a 4.4 score is wildly discouraging and makes me question whether I should continue publishing here.
Malcom
My guess and this is only guessing is that people may not have liked the ending. She was going to blackmail her friend but there was never anything shown as to what or how thing came about when she proceeded with her plan. The story ended as if it was a to be continued or you are hoping for more chapters.
But I will admit as a short story I myself enjoyed it and made a sticky note to find out after the contest who wrote it to check out if the was other stories.
.02
Your comment about my ending is a valid criticism, and one that was in the back of my mind when I published the story. In the end I decided going too far past April Fools Day didn't let the story be as much about the theme of the contest. If I was to finish the story to my satisfaction, it would probably go more than ten chapters.
A better approach, if you ARE planning on additional chapters, is to add that, not with an explicit statement, as that isn't allowed there, but simply adding a last minute thought by the character in question, such as "Yeah, I'm gonna pay that bitch back," as it'd hold the whole story together, providing more closure, as now, the thread is a direct, rather than an implied one.
Though, I'll admit, I never read the story, not being big on contests, it seems a better resolution, as it's clear there's more to the story once the initial story ends. It's not a "to be continued," yet again, it's implied, even if never get written.
One thing I might say is that for contests, you aren't necessarily getting your readers. You are getting the paid premium members who might have different tastes than the normal people who frequent your stories.
Don't worry too much about one poorly received story. Maybe something just didn't land as intended. Or as palamedes mentioned, it didn't feel like a complete story which could be a factor with contest submissions.
Let your readers find it and see what they say.
All the best,
-ghostwritten
makes me question whether I should continue publishing here.
It really doesn't matter where you post your stories. Some readers will applauded you while others will crucify you.
I haven't read any of your stories so I can't comment on them. Readers view a story in a contest differently from a story you just post.
Most readers typically rate a story on how it makes them feel. They tend to overlook or forgive many flaws. The result is a non-judgmental rating.
In a contest, the readers are not forgiving of flaws and critical of content. They tend to be more judgmental, so they don't rate the story as high as they would if you just posted it.
I just read the description to your story. Your idea of an April Fool's joke is not funny and I doubt I would enjoy the story. If the story content matches the description, there is no wonder the readers scored it so low.
I didn't see any requirements for the contest entries to be "funny", so I don't understand the snark in you saying "there is no wonder the readers scored it so low."
Maybe you're also pushing some kind of agenda against certain story types? This seems to be something that goes on here and is what a few people are telling me in private messages. That's fine, but I'm new here and trying to understand the dynamics of the site. I would appreciate more constructive criticism instead of being trolled over my story description.
I didn't see any requirements for the contest entries to be "funny"
Most people associate April Fools Day with light harted pranks. Not just whatever happens on April 1st.
Sometimes pranks go wrong and have serious consequences, but to be a prank, those serious consequences can't be the intent.
There are people who don't consider Die Hard to be a Christmas move.
It was released around Christmas, It's set at Christmas, with an office Christmas party, but ultimately the story is not about Christmas.
My story matches the contest description, which is an April Fools Day prank gone wrong (or right). The MC tries a prank on her friend at the mall, which goes wrong, resulting in some reluctant fellatio. It's not just a story set on a certain day.
The MC tries a prank on her friend at the mall,
Most people won't see it that way.
On April Fool's Day, April tricks her best friend Rachel into shoplifting at a mall, leading to Rachel's capture by a security guard. To avoid arrest, Rachel is coerced into doing something naughty that is secretly recorded. How far will April go to get her hands on that footage? Footage which could be the key to making all her domination dreams come true.
Tricking someone into committing a crime so you can blackmail them won't meet most people's definition of prank. It could be a good story outside the context of an April Fools prank, but it doesn't fit the context of an April Fools prank.
The description makes it seem like the "gone wrong" part was the intent from the beginning, which means it hasn't "gone wrong".
Sorry, Malcom, but you specifically asked why your story was rated so low. So get off your high horse and face reality. Many readers DON'T consider the content to be the least bit 'funny'. If that was your intent, then simply accept the score and be done with it, as you definitely earned the score you received. While your fans may love that type of content, general readers likely won't.
A scat or a racial attack story would likely have received a similar negative response. So, in that sense, consider yourself lucky, as yours wasn't nearly so bad!
There are people who don't consider Die Hard to be a Christmas move.
I don't. But my wife thinks "The Holiday" is the best Christmas movie ever. Is it really a Christmas movie?
Then again, I always thought the movie "Ben Hur" was about the Romans subjecting the Jews and how that affected one prominent Jewish family. And then one day I saw the full title of the move: "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ." So it wasn't even a movie about the subjugation of Jews. It was about Christ and how any suffering Jew could find reprieve by following Him.
I didn't see any requirements for the contest entries to be "funny",
What you encountered was not a contest requirement. You encountered human nature.
Remember that I said a reader's vote is based on their feelings about your story. You wrote a story about betrayal and using other people for your character's betterment. April Fools' pranks are supposed to be pranks that don't hurt the person who is pranked.
Your readers had a very negative opinion of your story. Therefore, they gave your story a poor rating.
so I don't understand the snark in you saying "there is no wonder the readers scored it so low."
You asked why you got a low score, and I gave you my opinion. You can call my opinion snarky, but your readers did not like the content of your story and rated it accordingly.
Actually, I think it's the nature of the contest. If the contest was a "new short story", or a "betrayal contest", then people would've been expecting it and thus rating it higher. Yet pulling that for an April Fool's 'Prank' story contest was an example of 'not reading the room'.
Stories fail for any number of reasons, yet it can be predicted, if you're consciously trying to be controversial. Again, those stories are fine, yet it was tone-deaf considering the Contest's context.
It's because competitions can only be voted on by paying premium members. Personally, I think that because they pay, they are a lot more discerning than those that read for free.
In the past, I went through all the previous competitions and the competitors, and checked their story score against their (non competition) story average. For almost all of them, the competition entries are their lowest scoring story in their library.
And yes, that includes me 😂
The small few who manage to buck that trend, tend to be the authors who normally score low to mid nine anyway.
The question I think we should actually be asking, is "Does this actually harm the existence of the competition?" Especially in the long run.
For me, it was a 'yes'. I attempted it once, not with any serious intention of actually winning, (be serious!) but just to try something new. In the past, I have even tried to promote enthusiasm for them in the forums. Which worked for a bit.
However, you can't hide the beast for long and once kicked in the goolies, not many come back for a second strike. As for me, my take on it was, "Well, fuck you premier payers...."
Thin skinned? Possibly. I'm certainly not going to deny that I don't like having my ego massaged once in awhile. And I have noticed that the majority who submit a piece, never do so again, and I totally understand why.
*Edit* Added a missing 'the'.
Thanks for the reply. I understand what you're saying, but I just feel like something strange happened. I'll just drop it for now. You're right though, I'm very unlikely to enter another contest like this.
I should have clarified that the contest I entered was the Halloween one, but to be honest, the voting behaviour in all the contests is the same, so technically, nothing strange happened with the recent April fools one. Votes were cast on par with previous, you were just not expecting the result.
It's at this point I feel there should be a meme picture with the caption, "And this is why we can't have nice things...."
I will also repeat as others said. I am not a paid premium member. I see the contest, some titles and authors look interesting. But I cannot read then vote for 6 months. Yes, I'm OK with the rules, I respect this site and all the authors here.
You as a contestant need to remember to publicize your contest entries at 6 months so that us non-members are reminded to read your story!
remember to publicize your contest entries at 6 months so that us non-members are reminded to read your story!
Only the 3 winners remain in the Premier area for the 6 months. The others become available in the free area when the contest winners are announced.
Not addressing specifically the story in question, but contests in general: I "vote" in contests, but I "score" other stories.
In general, when I start reading a story, I reach a decision about whether I like it or not. If I don't, I usually say, "I am not into the same kinks as the target audience." Then I stop reading it, and don't give it a score at all.
If I do give a story a score, it's because I read it to the end, so I give it a score of at least "OK." Also, at that point, I score matching my feeling to the word scores ("Excellent," "Good," etc.). The effect is that the average score I give is probably around 7.3.
On the other hand, for a contest, I try to read as much as I can of all the entries, and then I give a score to all of them - even the ones I disliked so much I couldn't finish them. Those scores are then relative to the pool. To maximize the weight of my opinion, I have to spread the scores as widely as possible. If there are two stories, I will give one a 10, the other a 0. In this case, I think I gave my favorite a 10, my second choice a 9, and I certainly spread the scores on the other stories all the way down to 0. The effect was that the average score I gave on the contest was probably slightly less than 5.
Supposing that other voters do something similar (if less calculated) the scores in contests will naturally end up being lower than for regular stories (at least, on average).
I repeat my original comment, though: this is not an opinion about the specific story by H. Malcolm Walker. I do not recall what score I gave that story, and it isn't relevant to my point. My point is that there is a reason why scores in contests may be lower than in general.
Thanks for everyone's opinions, good or bad. I appreciate that you took the time to leave them. I think my original question has been answered to my satisfaction, so I'm no longer going to monitor this post. Happy reading and writing to everyone out there.